Starting a Podcast… it’s up and running!

For some people, figuring out the technology of podcasting may come easily, but not for me. Thankfully, I had a good teacher… yes, I took a class on how to start a podcast!

 

Our houseguest cats helped to supervise

Due to COVID, it took a long time for the microphone to arrive, and it was thrilling to connect it to the computer and figure out how to designate the microphone as the source for audio. I set up an online appointment calendar for guest speakers to sign up for recording spots, and so far, 15 episodes have been recorded and published!

 

Except on the hottest days, I had tea while recording, complete with rubber Duckie tea strainer!

I started off asking specific friends to consider talking with me about a particular Bible passage or theme, and gradually other people and topics emerged organically. The first five episodes were about fear, social justice, our relationship with God, waiting, and an introductory interview about “why start a Bible study podcast?”

 

Our farm share included LOTS of zucchini, shown here as mini pizzas

I’ve developed a basic website before, but had more technology to learn with this podcast site https://40minutesoffaith.com  Each episode has a blog which includes a partial transcript of the conversation along with resources mentioned during the episode, such as books, other websites, etc.

 

It wasn’t fun for me to learn how to connect to podcasting sites, but the episodes can be downloaded from https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/40-minutes-of-faith-podcast/id1518514761 and also https://open.spotify.com/show/0THkaDB3C371bPeAAtfT0B

 

In addition to those sites, some episodes are recorded with both audio and video, and they can be viewed on YouTube 40 Minutes of Faith Whew! I am not a fan of social media, but I post each new episode on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn and the Facebook page for the podcast. As far as I am concerned, those locations are outreach opportunities for people to find out about the podcast so they might hear a word of welcome regarding faith. 

 

planting flower bulbs to bloom in the spring

I felt nervous before the first recording, and developed a checklist which included listening to a choir song, closing the window, etc.! I found out afterwards that many people are nervous about recording a podcast, even people who I ***thought*** were confident in other public faith settings. I appreciate people’s honesty and vulnerability in trying something new like this!

 

The prayers for each episode are recorded by Stephanie, even in the midst of her cross-country move! We started off with flute music at the beginning of episodes, and have recently added a newly composed and recorded version of "The Lord's Prayer" at the end of episodes.